Are you looking for an easy-peasy last-minute gift everyone will love? Then forget about plastic-covered candy. Buy a big bag of almonds instead (you can buy them loose or in bulk from a lot of organic supermarkets and health stores) and make roasted almonds – my favourite childhood goodie. For a small portion (fits in two medium-sized or three or four small glass jars) use:

200 g of almonds (unpeeled!)

120 ml of amaretto liqueur (or water)

1 pack of vanilla sugar

200 g of sugar

1 tsp of cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon of cayenne pepper

Heat up the amaretto and stir in the sugar, vanilla sugar, cinnamon and cayenne pepper. Let everything boil for about 10 seconds and stir in the almonds. Then let everything boil until the liquid dissolves. Now let the sugar caramelize and once all the almonds are completely coated and they look white from outside, let them cool down on a baking tray (put some baking paper on it, too). Try to keep them separate so that they don’t stick to each other.

Once their cold fill them in glass jars. I always keep my jars for this purpose.

You don’t have almonds at home? The recipe also works with peanuts or walnuts!

When I lived in the UK, home of the Hallmark postcard, I was amazed by how seriously people took the whole postcard business. To be honest I had paid much attention to postcards. I would often read them and throw them out after it. I would only keep the really pretty ones. But I noticed how much people in the UK valued their postcards. I saw people arranging them on the window sill, on their coffee tables or on their drawers. A friend of mine even hung them in her window using string.

To make a long story short: I absolutely loved how much a little postcard meant in the UK. I decided to become a little bit more English and bring this tradition back to my country – and make my own postcards. In my opinion there is no need to buy Christmas cards (unless you want to send one when you’re on holidays). Even if people keep them for a little while, they’ve got a very short life span and still get thrown out eventually. So why not recycle old cardboard, magazines and envelopes and create something unique – like DIY pizza carton postcards?

Take an old pizza carton (or any other carton), cut out a rectangle shaped postcard (just use an old one as a sample). Do the same with an old envelope. Then glue the envelope to the coloured side of the carton and use the blank side to get creative. Use old magazines or junk mail (you will find a lot of Christmas-sy pictures at the moment!) and cut out stars, trees or anything else you can think of and glue them to the cardboard.

You can find more unusual ideas on Buzzfeed. This one is my favourite last-minute project. Mine doesn’t look as pretty, but I used a different method, too. I cut a magazine page into little strips and arranged them as a tree. I also cut out a love heart – that way I’ve got a 100% recycled postcard.

Can you remember my Lego men magnets? As I had a few more Lego bricks at home I decided to turn them into jewellery. I discovered Lego jewellery a few years ago, absolutely loved it, but couldn’t understand how anyway would buy this as it’s so easy to make at home. On top of that everyone probably has some old Lego bricks at home. The handful of bricks I’ve got left wouldn’t really be enough to give them away in their original condition, so instead they became individual little treasures – DIY Lego hairclips and rings.

All you need for this is:

a couple of old Lego bricks

glue (This one is plant-based, free of chemicals and comes in a refillable glass bottle)

a blank ring and a blank hairclip

… and now: glue it and let it dry! That’s all it takes. In the meantime you can design a little gift box for your jewellery. I used an old cardboard soap container and glued scrap fabric around it.

This year I’m skipping the queues in the shops – not only because it’s a real challenge to go Christmas shopping when you want to avoid plastic packaging, I also feel like there are so many beautiful things you can make out of trash. I am even starting to collect some of my friends’ and parents’ trash, as I’m kind of running out of it – big Christmas upcycling projects seem to require a lot of glass jars and tins. So here are my first two ideas: upcycled DIY glass jar candle holders and pen holders.

[SPOILER ALERT: As I mentioned in my last post, if you happen to be a family member or a friend you might want to stop reading here. If you don’t mind getting a rough idea what might end up under the tree for you, you’re more than welcome to continue reading though.]

I used beautiful Finnish marimekko fabric for the first two pieces which I got about a year ago (I don’t know if it’s still available). In a more sustainable approach I will use scrap fabric or maybe even old clothes next time. I don’t think it needs much explanation. Just cut the fabric and glue it to the glass jar and tins. Et voilà, the first Christmas presents are done:

Christmas cookies in plastic boxes, piles of wrapping paper, plastic bags everywhere, plastic gifts put in plastic bags wrapped in plastic packaging – to make a long story short: December is definitely one of the hardest months to avoid unnecessary packaging. I read that we actually use up 30 % more paper than in other months because of all the gift-wrapping paer. But as impossible as avoiding uneccessary packaging over Christmas seems, there are ways. I decided to put together a little list of really easy things I’m doing this year – I suppose you could call it my “Christmas pledge”. Of course it involves a lot of stuff I’ve been doing ever since I started my blog, but I thought it might be helpful for others to know about it. Maybe you want to integrate a few of them into this year’s Christmas routine, too!?

1) Ditch gift-wrapping paper once and for all. There are so many clever and pretty alternatives, for example old newspapers (I found a Chinese newspaper recently, it looks pretty amazing), magazine pages, scarfs or (for big things) blankets (I got some inspiration on Buzzfeed, too). Whenever I get a present wrapped in gift-wrapping paper, I try to unwrap it carefully so that I can re-use the paper. I do, however, will ask my family not to use any gift-wrapping paper, too. So maybe we could even make it a completely gift-wrapping-paper-free Christmas?

alternative gift wrappers

2) I won’t buy packaged cookies and Christmas candy (loose cookies from the bakery should be fine though :-)). Instead I will make them myself (for example these date cashew hazelnut pralinés) and use old tins, glass jars and milk cartons as candy boxes. Makes a great Christmas present, too.

date cashew hazelnut praliné

3) [SPOILER ALERT] I will try to make all of my Christmas presents myself. There are so many easy and yet amazing things you can make at home. I know it might seem a little time-consuming, but hitting the high streets and queueing up in shops on a Saturday afternoon clearly can’t take that much less time. And fortunately there are some things that don’t take forever to make. I found some inspiration on Buzzfeed (33 DIY gifts you can make in less than an hour), although I generally prefer gifts you can actually “use up” . That’s why I like to fill things like cookie, risotto or bread mixtures in old glass bottles or jars. Just choose your favourite recipe, fill in the ingredients, stick the recipe to the bottle and you’ve got a really unique gift that won’t add up to the big pile of things we’ve all got already. Or I make my own herbal oils.

homemade risotto mix

homemade herbal oil

4) The same goes for gift cards. I will make them from old cardboard boxes (cereal boxes for example) and pretty pictures from magazines and use scrap fabric to decorate them. Glued magazine pages will serve as envelopes.

magazine page envelopes

5) And last but not least: I want to downsize in general. I love upcycling old things, I love making little homemade presents, but the really important things are love and time. So I don’t think I always need to buy or even make a present for everyone. Cooking for someone, arranging a movie night at home and “giving time” always makes a much better gift. I saw this great German website the other day where you can create gift-cards for quality time instead of quality products. As a good friend of mine pointed out, it’s kind of defining of our times and our part of the world that we actually need a website that makes us aware of this, but if that is what it takes to spread the idea, I’m all for it.

What are your thoughts on this? How are you celebrating Christmas this year? Do you have any more plastic-free ideas (or something I really missed on my list)? Let me know, would love to hear from you!

By the way: More upcycling and DIY Christmas ideas will follow next time!